14 TROTTY’S WEDDING TOUR.

long, loose, shaky stone wall which the cows can jump over
when they like, and from which the stones roll on little boys’
and girls’ ankles in climbing over if they don’t look out.

Nita came; and Nate. Merle said that Nate married
them, and so he must unmarry them. Nita and Nate and
Trotty sat down on the shaky wall. Miss Merle hid behind
it, and kept jumping up to see, and scraping her little short
nose very hard on the edge of the wall, and then flopping
down with a great noise to hide again. She was not sup-
posed to be there at all, —it not being thought quite proper ;
and though Mrs. Nita made faces at her twice, and the Rev-
erend Mr. Nate turned his clerical eyes with a broad and
reproving stare upon her whenever she moved, and Trotty
kissed his hand to her in the face of the public and without a
blush, the supposition answered all conventional and legal
purposes quite as well as the fact, — which is the case with a
great many suppositions in more mature society.

Well, and so Nita and Nate and Trotty sat down —with
some care, and holding on very tight — upon Indiana, and the
services began. It was Merle who wanted it called “ ser-
vices.” The clergyman thought ceremony a more suitable
word ; perhaps because the occasion seemed to the professional
mind to be lacking in the solemnity of either a first marriage
or a funeral. The widow —if that is the proper thing to call
her — preferred “ exercises,” and Trotty himself inclined to
speak of the “ performances”; but Merle carried the day,
and the services began as follows : —